The Devourer and the Galaxy
by Proudnewamerikan
Summary: While we know much about the races of the Galaxy from their own point of view, the one species we cannot see the viewpoint of is the Tyranid swarm. How might the Great Devourer, the Hive Mind of the Tyranids, see the other races of the Galaxy?
1. The Devourer and the Prologue

**Far before the first spores of a foreign xenos race fell upon Tyran…**

The Great Devourer was born without ceremony, any recognition of its eventual fate it would play in the shaping of the Milky Way Galaxy thousands of light-years away. It first began to truly think still inside the protective casing of its brood sack surrounded by its siblings, warm and soft and still easy prey for any one of the numerous predators who hunted the area. The species it belonged to was barely a fragment of the local ecosystem, and that was merely one of many locations that existed on the outside of a very large space faring creature, and the young, still underdeveloped Devourer was on the absolute bottom of the natural order.

Like all of its fellow siblings, after reaching as far as it could go in predevelopment it started to tear at the casing, four short and stubby appendages waving about frantically in an attempt to instinctively break open the walls of the sack that held it back from the world. Almost mindlessly, it and twelve other tiny beings started to beat, as one, against the sack that held them fast within. And with the movement of their limbs, and the force they through into their beatings, after a while the protective brood sack gave up trying to resist and tore open.

The Devourer spilled forth, tiny body tumbling outside of a gash in the perforated brood sack to roll upon the surface of the space beast, brain and mind already set to working out the most essential and basic part of its nature, a thought process that it would forever keep as its primary goal in existence – survival. Immediately, it turned its head this way and that, multifaceted eyes picking up every visual detail of the environment around it, every heat presence, and every chemical composition of its immediate surroundings.

Like all of its fellow siblings, the environment was a grim, but ultimately common one for the species of the Devourer – a small clearing, dwarfed by enormous protein 'trees' that stretched straight upwards into the blackness of space; the empty brood sack, now in several torn pieces and scattered in the fast drying juices that had been held within; and towering above the thirteen new beings two, enormous corpses – the partially eaten remains of what had been the parents of the grubs. Death was the first thing the Devourer ever saw, and it would be the first lesson ever imprinted into its mind – _Life is Death is Life. _

The second thing the Devourer would ever see was the body of its sibling, attempting to squirm away to a nearby tree to feast upon the protein there. Immediately, the Devourer crawled to the distracted sibling, and with weak but suitable mandibles lunged deep into the soft belly. The fluids and blood of the sibling began to flow out, and it started to wriggle erratically from the sudden pain, but the Devourer paid no mind – the first lesson of life was that life was death, and survival was imperative – survival was the death of others, and the life of oneself. And to that end, the nutrients its sibling would provide the Devourer would be a factor, no matter how minute, in keeping it alive. It kept cutting into its sibling, mandibles chewing up the soft insides of the grub and guiding the remains to the rest of its mouth, providing the first meal it would ever have outside the sack. And, as it fed, its siblings began to do the same. Only the strongest would survive, and to survive the weak must be culled.

After a time, the Devourer was alone. Of the thirteen siblings that had emerged outside the sack only a few minutes earlier, now only five remained. The rest had suffered death at the hands of their fellows, and, like all the rest of its surviving siblings, the Devourer began to creep off to parts elsewhere, seeking only survival in whatever form it could. It knew nothing and cared nothing for the future, except but for a dim, barely understood desire to someday spread, and propagate. Its focus was otherwise in the here and now, seeking out its next meal and surviving long enough to grow, and pass on its genetic material to future generations.

In most ways, the Devourer was entirely like the other grubs of its species. Luck, will, and the fate of whatever guided its species were the only factors that would affect whether it lived, died, or managed to pass on its genetic material to another of its species – mostly. For the Devourer had a mutation in its coding, a mutation created entirely by coincidence within its structure that had never existed before. A mutation existed in it, a mutation not entirely uncommon in the grand scheme of things, but one that rarely worked out well for the species that had it and survived.

For unlike any of its kind before, the Devourer was, even if in the beginning on a level so small it was nearly indistinguishable, sapient.


	2. The Devourer and the Galaxy

The Galaxy, in the grand scheme of things (and there seem to be quite a lot of schemes these days), is nothing. It is merely one of countless, an isolated area in the middle of darkness, and filled with inhabitants who don't even know just how low and alone they are. The lives of those that live within this Galaxy are brief, and full of pain, and yet throughout it all there seems to be a curious blissfulness about them. They cannot see the darkness that lies beyond the edge of their Galaxy.

The Great Devourer sees the Galaxy, and it sees an island.

The Devourer is a long way, now, from its birthing days, and has changed much from the time it first saw and learned the basic rules of life. Where once it was held fast in the body of a mere grub, now it physically exists over hundreds of light-years, made of up of a multitude of organisms so vast there would be no point in trying to count them all. It has encountered individualism, and collectivism, reached what could be called a religion and saw that religion fall, and has spread across over more than twenty galaxies. In life, it knows that it is still utterly insignificant compared to what could be, what _is _no doubt out there in the vastness of the universe, and yet it still continues living, still continues growing, because it has never lost track of the most important law – _life is death is life_.

It has only just noticed the Galaxy, and it sees an island full of life and advancement. Even now, as the first faint molecules of its being start to investigate, it senses the inhabitants, and (as all living things) it is curious. They are hostile – and to the Great Devourer, that is not something to be surprised about. All life is hostile, everywhere, each bit of life seeking to survive as best it can. And as _life is death is life_, often that survival must mean the death of others.

The Great Devourer seeks to learn more. In the vast amount of time it has been alive, it has (perhaps due to that mutation, a quirk of nature that would bear consequences for thousands and millions of species) always attempted to learn, for anything can be used for survival – anything. It keeps what it learns, and deep, deep within its many zillions – for that is really the only proper word for a creature of its size, zillions – of mental cells, it recalls everything it assimilates.

But, even as the Tyranid Hive Fleets tear open worlds and descend upon countless planets in ravenous swarms, the Great Devourer only minutely experiences what new knowledge and genetic material it is receiving from the Galaxy. Even as without thought it immediately begins the sort out the most efficient use of all data and material gained, it does not have enough of itself present currently to investigate further. And this…

While the Great Devourer thinks in ways so xenos that humanity cannot even begin to attempt and fully explain how it thinks, the closest emotion one might be able to say as to the Devourer's thoughts on this is anger.

The Great Devourer is curious about this Galaxy, this island, and even as it seeks to live it seeks to learn. Across the void of space, billions of Hive Fleets go dead – still adrift, but…asleep. The Devourer does not relinquish control, but it shuts down part of itself, letting a vast majority of its being gently fade into sleep.

And then it has become numb, and the Devourer acts through only quadrillions of Tyrannic organisms, rather than all of itself. It looks, with more clarity now, at the Galaxy, being able to now distinguish the mightiest clusters of species among the stars from each other. Even as the first faint brush of the Great Devourer passes over the Galaxy, more worlds are eaten, and it takes in more knowledge. This island, it appears, will be a nourishing, if not especially fruitful one.

The Great Devourer sees the Galaxy, and sees its inhabitants.

The Great Devourer sees the inhabitants, and learns.


	3. The Devourer and the Imperium

To the Imperium of Man, the Astronomicon is a guiding beacon, a welcoming light of the Emperor serving to steer fleets and armadas to their destinations safely. From His seat on the Golden Throne, the Immortal God-Emperor serves as the lighthouse through which the thousands of psychics sacrificed in His Name power the Astronomicon's light. It is a lighthouse that holds the Imperium of Man together, for without it the Imperium would be collapse, cut into a million separate segments.

Unfortunately for the Imperium, the lighthouse guides more than them. It guides a vast omniscience, draws it to the Galaxy as inexorably as a moth to the light of a lasgun. It promises this intelligence feeding, reproduction, evolution…**survival**.

The Devourer sees the Imperium of Man, and it sees potential.

While not the sole reason for entering the Galaxy, that great beacon of psychic output nonetheless attracts the Devourer. It is a relic of an instinct, held over from days far before the Emperor himself ever walked the lands of Holy Terra – back even before the Devourer had assimilated the rest of its species into itself. And while the Devourer does not dwell back on those days, it is nonetheless driven by – the closest human expression, though woefully unable to truly describe such a xenos emotion in any real capacity, would be nostalgia – to investigate.

And as the Great Devourer crosses into the Galaxy, the first minute particles of itself slowly trailing into the Galaxy, it finds that whatever is broadcasting the signal doesn't want it to stop. The beacon is far too large from the Devourer to fully engulf, and the Imperium sends its forces to fight back. On a hundred, a thousand worlds, the defenders of humanity engage the Tyranid forces in battle. Space Marines engage in fighting that literally shakes the landscape as they duel enormous Carnifexes, the Imperial Guard fight for survival and in last-ditch stands against the chitin-plated tides of Gaunts, Inquisitors and their retinue delve into catacombs and space hulks to eradicate Genestealers with flame and bolter, and all the other miscellaneous defenders of humanity stand forth against the seemingly endless tide.

Though the Great Devourer has had less than a percent of its total collective forces in the Galaxy, it still recognizes these humans that belong to the organism of the Imperium of Man and it does what it knows best – adaption, evolution, survival.

The Great Devourer is intelligible on a scale far beyond that of many species' comprehension now, and it requires almost no conscious (or at least, what we would know as conscious) thought at all to sort out the genes, memories, knowledge, and thoughts of every living entity it has ever absorbed. Everything is ruthlessly and mindlessly dredged for whatever use it might serve to increase, no matter how small in scale, the reproduction, adaptation, and continued survival of the Great Devourer. It is this that allows the Devourer to put a name to the organism broadcasting the irresistible signal that drew it to the Galaxy – _Imperium _-and it is this that allows it to see the potential that this organism represents.

The Imperium is nothing like the Devourer has seen – it is an organism capable of responding to the Devourer as another organism, another player in the game of predator and prey, but it is _not_, somehow, at the same time. There is no overall guidance dictating the actions of its being, its physical body – and though the Devourer has found it a weak, wounded beast that the Devourer will not hesitate to engulf, it is still…a fellow fighter.

The Imperium, even in its severely wounded and damaged state, will fight back and attempt to survive, and this has triggered something in the Devourer. Already, it has sent the most separate part of itself – to the Imperium, the Tyranid form known as the Swarmlord – to fight in many battles against the Imperium, to learn more about what makes its particles so separate and unique and yet so much a part of the same organism.

The Imperium shall either defend itself against the Great Devourer, or be devoured in return. There are no other options the Great Devourer can even conceive of. But inside a corner of its mind, the Great Devourer studies the Imperium, attempts to learn what makes it survive and prosper…and then prepares to test those qualities out itself. Even now, as the next wave of Hive Fleets starts to drift towards the edge of the Galaxy, their contents are modified, the lesser beasts developing rudimentary brains capable of activating should their synaptic link to the Hive Mind fail, the greater beasts granted even more degrees of autonomy when cut off from the Great Devourer's full control.

The Great Devourer sees the Imperium, and it sees potential.

It will take that potential for itself, and then feed on the Imperium without mercy.


	4. The Devourer and Chaos

At once opposed but at the same time intrinsically linked with the physical universe, the Warp is a realm of nightmares, full of the mad laughing of incurably demented gods who scheme in ways too arcane and convoluted to even begin to comprehend. To say that the Warp, and the inhabitants within it, are opposite to the Great Devourer could be well-stated. The Devourer is single-minded, single-focused, and weaves every available thread of thought into fulfilling, in some way, its ultimate and clear goal – survival. But the Warp...the Warp is endlessly complicated, full of ten billion interweaving and conflicting goals and plans, where every entity is both linked to everything else and, at the same time, totally on its own. Who could begin to guess how two such entities would regard each other?

The Devourer sees Chaos, and it sees nothing.

Chaos has always existed, in one way or another, and for the Devourer Chaos is not a force, an entity – it is a fact of life, as intrinsic as death and life. The Devourer simply cannot, even thought it might have once deep within the far, far past, when it wasn't, but was something else. Chaos was as intrinsic as life, as intrinsic as death, and in the end merely another fact of existence, something to be accounted for and overcome in the constant search for survival.

On thousands of worlds, Chaos Space Marines and the Lost and the Damned praise unholy chants to their chosen gods as they fight against the Tyranid hive swarm. Daemon hordes swarm out of debased portals and fall upon the reciprocating Hive Fleet masses. There is no thoughts of salvation, no horror or fear or terror – simply sheer rage and hatred and feeding all around.

But to the Devourer, such things are of little interest – in the end, biomass is biomass no matter whether it comes from warp spawn or tainted flesh. And, as with all things Chaos, there is no unity – none in truth, and none to the Devourer. It registers Chaos as nothing, for how can an entity recognize another when there is none in the first place? Instead, all encounters are swept under the notice of the Devourer, registered only as the natural process of survival.

Even the one sign of Chaos – the lack of soul that prevents the Devourer from gaining any memories or experience from the beings it destroys – goes unnoticed, for the Galaxy is not alone. Chaos is omnipresent, and wherever the Devourer has gone, it has fed on beings tainted by the Chaos unnoticed since it existed. It is simply an accepted fact, and unnoticed by the calculating Devourer.

That is not to say that Chaos is incapable of effecting the Devourer, for it tries. It certainly tries to, infecting the Devourer with a tainted and corrupt virus of the soul every time it meets in battle. But a virus is only good if the immune system cannot handle it, and the Devourer has thrived on not merely attacking...but sucking in viral attackers.

As such, the forces of Chaos seep in – and are taken apart and re-digested in turn. Tzeentchian energies are torn from their holy origins, mutated and warped past recognition to fuel the Devourer's adaptation process. Slannesh's whispers fall on deaf ears, and her illusions are strained and wrung into new stealth mechanisms. Nurgle's diseases are churned into an endless cycle of adaptation and induction into the Tyrannic weaponry stores. And, as Chaos fights even harder, the Devourer does what it does best – survive.

The Devourer sees Chaos, and it sees nothing.

The Devourer ignores Chaos, and grows stronger from its attacks.


End file.
